Tenipuri Drabbles
by Aperu
Summary: A series of Prince of Tennis Drabbles. Mostly yaoi, especially OshiGaku. See individual chapters for warnings and summaries.
1. Monday

**1.**

**Title:** Monday   
**Pairing:** Oshitari/Gakuto   
**Word Count:** 231   
**Rating:** PG-13   
**Summary:** It's a vicious cycle – breaking up with Yuushi. 

It was Monday and Gakuto was crumpled in the locker room corner, knees to chest, head thrown back, pale throat working. It would have been okay if he was imagining Yuushi, hand moving quickly beneath his tennis shorts and cheeks flushed crimson. But it was Monday and Gakuto was crying, pale tears leaking from beneath clenched eyelids, dripping from his chin, wetting the heels of his palms. And Yuushi… Yuushi was nowhere to be seen. 

On the Tuesday morning, it was raining, but that was okay too, because Gakuto had forgotten to brush his hair. By ten past four, he'd told himself he didn't care enough times to almost believe it and he'd smiled at the mirror enough times to stop his face from freezing up and looking pained. So on the Tuesday morning, Gakuto was ready to face the day. And Yuushi… Who was Yuushi again? 

Wednesday afternoon meant tennis practice. Gakuto loitered for a while, twisting his shirt into knots. He knew he was being stupid, but somehow couldn't stop and it was fifteen minutes later that he sucked in a breath and marched onto the courts. But Yuushi wasn't there. When he asked, Atobe stared holes into his head and opened his mouth reluctantly. Yuushi was sick. 

Thursday came. Yuushi didn't look sick at all. 

Friday. 

Then Saturday. 

Sunday. 

And Monday again. 

Yuushi wasn't coming back. 

Gakuto cried. 

**END**


	2. Candy

**2.**

**Title:** Candy   
**Pairing:** Oshitari/Gakuto   
**Word Count:** 145   
**Rating:** PG   
**Summary:** Gakuto likes kisses, so long as there's nothing behind them. 

Gakuto is a feast for the eyes. Oshitari can't help but think so when he glimpses that shock of wine-red hair bobbing towards him in a crowd, when Gakuto grins and launches at him, milky arms wrapping around his waist, face upturned. "Yuushi," he breathes, and sometimes, it's hard to resist a taste. 

Resisting tends to flee his mind when Gakuto swirls around their dorm room, clad in a little white towel, dancing to his bubblegum pop and mouthing the words with cherry lips. But if Oshitari reaches for him, Gakuto slaps his hand away and laughs, "Yuushi!" 

Gakuto smells like musk sticks and cakes of soap. He's loud and sassy and provocative... and sweet and sour like a lemon cough drop. Every so often, after a steamy kiss, Oshitari tries to use the 'l' word. 

Gakuto just sighs and sucks it from his throat. 

**END**


	3. Gossamer

**3.**

**Title:** Gossamer   
**Pairing:** Oshitari/Gakuto   
**Word Count:**   
**Rating:** PG-15…? For implications   
**Summary:** AU – Of lanterns and ricepaper doors.   
**A/N: Theme was, 'Into every young man's bedroom you gave it up.' **

Lanterns -- his earliest memory of that place, hanging over the balconies like glowing, bulbous fruits. Their golden tassels swayed in the late autumn breeze and the night was cold. Quiet too, save the raucous laughter of hot-blooded drunks. And even they were muted, like spidersilk memories of a life gone by. 

He remembers so clearly because it made such a pretty picture, the call boy with vermilion hair and stormwater eyes, glaring into the darkness. High above the empty streets, he blazed brighter even than the lanterns, a lotus blooming from the mire. Slender fingers clasped the front of his kimono as the wind tried to coax it open -- there was only time for a glimpse, but the chest beneath was white like the snow that had not yet fallen. 

Oshitari was not in the habit of frequenting such establishments. He was familiar enough with the knock of wooden thongs against second-rate floorboards, and the seductive impracticality of ricepaper doors, but the sight of the beautiful boy alone -- pale, abandoned ghost-child, stark against the black sky -- would not usually have driven him to enter. 

Perhaps it was the stillness that shot through one's soul on evenings like these, the ache for sake and good company. 

Perhaps it did not go beyond the fact that Oshitari saw, and he wanted, and he always received what he wanted, in the end. 

Whatever the reason may have been, Oshitari had the boy in his arms within the hour. Thin and bony and smouldering, he was nothing like the geishas, all soft curves and diffidence. His was an awkward grace that had little to do with powder and parasols, and the kimono he wore was plain and too large, the colours long washed out. But with his back pressed against a straw mat and the kimono unfastened, Oshitari thought he was the most precious thing in the world. 

Dark shadows flitted across milky skin, still icy from his earlier venture, and Oshitari covered them with broad hands, encasing those narrow hips to rub in the warmth. By now, they had exchanged formalities, shared a drink -- though the boy only pretended to sip -- and held idle, frivolous conversation. 

Oshitari could confess that the thought of using a false name did not cross his mind; he intended to make the boy -- Gakuto -- cry out, and where was the satisfaction in hearing the name of a stranger? 

The time passed in flashes; the night faded into a whisper of long ago. A sound from beyond the flimsy screen of dancing silhouettes. Gakuto's startled gasp. The rustle of cloth as he moved to sit up, eyes wide. And Oshitari's indignation as he pinned the boy roughly. "Are you ashamed?" _Of this. Us. Me._ "I won't have it." 

Gakuto, little chest heaving, mouth open, lips wet, splayed beneath him like an offering, as if Oshitari were a god. And he was, just as any man at any brothel was. Surely, tomorrow, Gakuto would vanish like a dream, gone to haunt someone else's bed. 

Oshitari did not want it, did not like to think of it -- the spark of something that wasn't love for the whore he'd only just met -- but he hadn't any control over that. 

So he drank enough of the sight to sate a starving man, to drown the uneasy sleeps ahead. Gave pleasure and was pleasured until his vision turned white and he sank into blindness. 

He awoke alone, dressed and slipped out into a misty morning. Wistful eyes watched him go. Perhaps, in the next life… 

**END**


	4. Yours Helplessly

**5.**

**Title:** Yours Helplessly   
**Pairing:** Unrequited Sanada/Yukimura   
**Word Count:** 265   
**Rating:** PG   
**Summary:** 'You'd be death's bride. But never mine.' 

The night before the nationals, Sanada goes to the hospital. 

Yukimura is there, drifting through the corridors, with little, pasty-faced creatures chasing at his heels. 

He smiles wordlessly when Sanada approaches – the children scatter like leaves. There's a healthy flush across his cheeks today, but his expression is too reassuring, his breath coming in careful puffs. 

Sanada escorts him to his room, bites back any chastising words and politely turns away when he clambers into bed. It doesn't suit Yukimura, this clumsiness. It's that insatiable sickness again – taking away everything Sanada wants and knows. 

His fist tightens suddenly. There's a crunch of stalks against his palm. 

"Daffodils, again?" 

"Ah." He glances down, considers their drooping, yellow heads. "Tulips then. For next time." 

Yukimura chuckles woodenly, reaches out for the gift with hungry fingers and despairing eyes. "Next time…" 

_Will there be a next time?_

"The day after tomorrow. I'll bring tulips." Definitely. He won't forget. 

Yukimura acts as though he hasn't heard, stares at the wall and out the window. There's nothing to see. Then, after some time – minutes, hours – he speaks. Not to Sanada, to the flowers, with their clean, open faces. Smoothes the bright cellophane with pale fingers. "I wonder what it's like to never wake up." 

Later, when Sanada has left, the bouquet is crushed to his chest with greedy arms, blue spilling over the sheets as he crumples. Face pressed into the mattress, he sobs and gasps and quakes. 

Sanada watches through the window in the door. He wonders where the darkness has come from. 

The hospital is flooded with light. 

**END**


	5. Sleeper

**5.**

**Title:** Sleeper   
**Pairing:** Atoji   
**Word Count:** 279   
**Rating:** PG   
**Summary:** Jirou-centric WAFF.   
**A/N:** Theme was 'April Showers.' 

It's a strange thing, rain in April. The sun is shining, the grass, green, and Jirou is shuffling to practice when the sky cracks open and all of a sudden there's water. Water in his hair and his eyes and soaking through his shirt to jolt him awake. 

He's always a little befuddled afterwards, traipsing in on the others late, damp and a little cold. Shishido frowns and Gakuto scowls and Jirou might start to feel miserable, just a bit… at least until Atobe sits beside him and their knees brush just slightly and a fluffy towel drops softly onto his head. 

Because then, it's easy to forget about silly things like April showers, the way his clothes are sticking uncomfortably to his skin and the way Atobe's clothes are too expensive to sleep on – tailor-made, you see – and it isn't hard at all to give in to the temptation, to topple over on his side and be lulled into a delicious snooze by the rise and fall of Atobe's chest and the fingers that weave through his hair. 

Jirou never dreams when he's like this. Usually, he dreams of tennis, and Atobe. 

Sometimes, he has nightmares and… other dreams. Nice dreams. Dreams that ruin his sheets and make him red-cheeked and nervous so that seeing Atobe sends his stomach into an explosion of butterflies. Choutarou smiles sympathetically on these days, and Oshitari, knowingly. Gakuto leers. Jirou just blushes harder. 

But it's clear that Jirou likes these naps best, sprawled across the bleachers, head buried in Atobe's hip, dead to the world, but knowing that he'll leave suspicious, wet patches on Atobe's shorts. And Atobe doesn't seem to mind. 

**END**


	6. Denial

**6.**

**Title:** Denial   
**Pairing:** Sanada/Yukimura   
**Word Count:** 328   
**Rating:** PG   
**A/N:** Theme was 'Soft.' 

Sanada has never liked Yukimura. 

Yukimura knows, because in the familiar stillness of a dark ward, he's turned it over and over in his mind, like a giant Rubik's cube. Slowly, slowly, the pieces click into place, and he understands now, all the little things that never added up and plagued him awake. 

He's only just realised that Sanada's coolness has nothing to do with troubled acceptance – of his state, his _illness_ – and everything to do with an awful indifference that hurts him more than he ever thought bearable. Except Yukimura has always been strong, strong enough to lift dampened spirits, strong enough to ignore bottomless stares that spear his soul. And there's strength yet in that willowy frame to live, to damn that ugly operation success rate to hell, to promise Bunta and Akaya to get better soon. Sometimes, he wonders how long something so fragile could possibly last. And is it his strength that's fragile, or Yukimura himself? 

Sanada seems to think the latter, and Yukimura is partly frustrated, and partly relieved, and partly a mess of feelings he can't and doesn't care to explain. Because, if Sanada hates him truly, then why treat him like glass? Wrapping him up and tucking him away and out of sight? As if discouraging visits from the team will make the reality of this – everything – disappear? Why? 

And Yukimura seems forever to be watching Sanada's back. Sanada sitting turned slightly away from him. Sanada walking away. Sanada. Sanada. Sanada. "Sanada." 

"Ah." 

Yukimura manages a tremulous smile. He doesn't recall Sanada entering. It's terribly selfish of him, to monopolise Sanada like this, to pull him away from practice, to blame him. 

"I'm sorry. It's just… This hospital does things to me." 

There's no answer, but it isn't needed. Not when Sanada's holding him like this, warm and soft and completely at odds with the icy exterior he presents. 

And though Yukimura's voice is suffused with steel, really, he's soft too. 

**END**


	7. Beginnings

**7.**

**Title:** Beginnings   
**Pairing:** Shishido/Choutarou   
**Word Count:** 103   
**Rating:** PG   
**Summary:** I waited before I knew what waiting was called. 

Shishido's world is strips of memory. 

He was - he used to be - a Hyoutei boy. Arrogant tilt of chin and slanted eyes. Hair like coffee, vanity like breathing. 

Then there was Choutarou, and everything that existed previously fizzled and died and rose again. 

Stadium lights glaring behind his eyelids. The pop of tendons. Favours and flight and Pain. _Shishido-san._ Cold hands and warm silver. _I'm sorry_. Fingertips tracing ugly bruises. Salt leaking from rueful eyes as they cradle bloody elbows. _Kiss me, please, Shishido-san._ It's the longest night of his life.   
Without Choutarou, everything shimmers and fades like fever dreams. 

**END**


End file.
